China plans to establish a reserve along 84 miles of the Yangtze River in Hubei province for the protection of the river dolphin, one of four types of freshwater dolphins in the world, the official New China News Agency reported Friday.

A 30-minute hailstorm killed at least 45 people and injured about 120 in a southwestern China city Thursday, New China News Agency reported. The storm in Luzhou, Sichuan province, damaged houses, cut water and power supplies and telephone lines. It also uprooted trees.

Shanghai Mayor Wang Daohan, 70, has resigned after a five-year tenure, the official New China News Agency said Thursday. Wang reportedly fell in disfavor with Communist Party leaders by not expediting economic reforms in China's industrial hub.

China and Vietnam have conducted an exchange of prisoners on the tense border between the rival Communist nations, the official New China News Agency reported Sunday. China handed over 34 Vietnamese, including 25 "armed personnel" and four "spies," and Vietnam returned 27 Chinese, the agency said. It described the Chinese prisoners as "border inhabitants they (Vietnam) had kidnaped."

Two Chinese men who murdered an American man aboard a train in June were executed today, the state-run New China News Agency said. Cui Yuzhong, 23, and Dai Wenxin, 27, workers from Benxi, Liaoning province, were convicted Aug. 12 of robbing and murdering Ewald Cheer, 61, a Chinese language instructor from San Angelo, Tex.

Heavy rain loosened rocks on a mountainside above a gold mine in southwest China, triggering landslides that killed at least 66 people, the state-run New China News Agency said Wednesday. Another 162 people were still missing. At least 76 people were injured in the slides, which occurred between Friday and Monday at the Daping gold mine in Yunnan province, 1,450 miles southwest of Beijing, the news agency said.

For the second time in nine days, a powerful earthquake struck a remote area of southwestern China, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, officials said Tuesday. The official New China News Agency said the magnitude 6.7 quake struck in an isolated region along Sichuan province's border with Tibet. A magnitude 6.7 tremor rocked the same area April 16, killing four people and injuring five.

The fossilized tusk of a giant elephant dating back 1 million years was discovered by a peasant digging in the fields of Jiangsu province, the official New China News Agency reported Thursday. It said the tusk, which weighs 220 pounds and is 11 1/2 feet long, is the largest ever found in China. Archeologists estimate the elephant's height at 26 feet.